Yet 'twould be her death to defy Richard's orders.
'Twas to keep Prince John at bay, though Connal had his doubts as to whether it would cause a stir for the ambitious prince. As he tossed the bones into the fire, Sinead offered him a damp cloth. Lying on his side, he wiped his hands and mouth. They'd traveled for days now and she looked no worse for wear, fresh and bright in the darkness.
She stood and he came upright.
"Where do you think to go?"
She held a bundle close to her chest. "For privacy."
He stood.
"I'll have little privacy with you near, PenDragon."
She moved into the forest. She vanished so quickly he called to her.
I am here, came to him without words. Be patient.
A shiver passed over his spine to know she could speak to him like that. Squatting near the fire, Connal tore off a chunk of brown bread, his gaze straying to the woods. For the thicket and snow, he could see naught but darkness. She'd been gone for some time, longer than necessary to take care of her needs. Connal stuffed the last of the bread into his mouth and stood, walking into the forest.
He called her name softly, not wanting to scare her or alert anyone who might be about. His sword already, he moved between the branches and winter-dead vines. A dull light beckoned him, yet he knew she'd not taken a torch. Then he heard the rush of water. By God, in winter?
He stepped farther and the light brightened, and as he moved around a cluster of trees, he stilled. His heart slammed to his stomach, then beat hard and steady.
Surrounded by snow-capped rocks and moss, Sinead stood in the center of a still pool of water. Naked. Her back to him, her red hair spilled down her back and floated on the surface. Steam rose from its depths, frosting the air, enveloping her in a fine mist and sparkling brightly against the darkness. As if the moonlight spilled down on her alone. Beyond and above her, the waterfall was frozen, locked in its graceful pour.
And there were faeries, a half dozen at least, fluttering around her, attending their lady like maidens of the forest.
He stilled, his sword point in the ground, his hands on the hilt as the faeries used cupped leaves full of water to rinse her hair. He'd never seen a real one before, thought them only legends to tell small children.
The sight was shattering. There was a purity in her power, and his gaze moved down over her naked spine and lower. Water slid off her and into the shallow pool as the faeries helped bathe her. She whispered to them, but he could not hear the words. She turned slightly, offering a view of her breast, the swelling curve of her hips, yet 'twas the pleased smile on her face that lit something dead and dying in his chest.
He wanted her, wanted naught more than to take her into his arms. To have her smiling and breathless with pleasure beneath him.
To feel her take him inside her and make him whole again.
His body reacted with the wild thoughts, and carefully, Connal backed up and slipped quietly away. His heart thundered at the thought of touching her skin, of tasting her, and whilst he waited, he crushed the need bludgeoning him and thought of his meeting with King Rory, then with DeCourcy. His duty.
Then she appeared before him, like a flash of light in the darkness. Dressed in a fresh gown of deep red wool, her hair was dry and curling. She sat, braiding the mass into a single plait and not meeting his gaze.
He lay on his side, stripping the dead bark from a twig.
She prepared her bed.
"Nay, come here," he said when she started to lie down opposite him. He patted the space between him and the blaze. "'Twill be warmer."
Sinead eyed him and he held out his hand in silent challenge. She came to him and Connal shifted behind her, blocking the wind and pulling her close.
She struggled for a moment.
"Shhh," he whispered. "Be still."
"You are like leaning upon a rock."
He snickered to himself. "Keep squirming," he whispered in her ear, "and I'll grow harder."
She inhaled and twisted to look at him. Her gaze searched his. "You saw me in the pool."
He smiled and glanced toward the woods. "Will your friends return?"
"'Twas improper not to make yourself known."
"And spoil such a delightful view?"
"PenDragon!"
"Connal," he reminded as he reached, stroking a finger down her temple and pushing back freshly washed hair. "You are a beautiful woman." A pause and then, "Especially naked."
She reddened. "You are a … scoundrel."
"For wanting what is mine?"
She sent him an indignant look. "Wanting what is mine. 'Tis not news you offer, knight."
His gaze moved over her features, landing on her mouth.
"Nay, I will vanish," she warned.
"Nay, you will not," he commanded as his face neared.
Sinead tried to conjure, to move, and yet she felt imprisoned by those words, her heart begging her to stay and taste this man. Learn if she could trust him not to hurt her as Markus had.
"Lust is empty."
He heard the plea in her voice. "'Tis more than filling."
Hope sprang through her. His mouth neared, his big hands slowly palming the contours of her waist, her hip, and the experience came without fear, without threat. The wind stirred around them; the blaze flared briefly.
Neither noticed.
Connal sketched her features, searching for a spark of fear left by Markus, yet found her blue eyes clear and bright and beckoning. "I feel your body pulse, Sinead. Your heart races with mine. I know your breath, your skin, without touching it." He marveled at the sensations pelting him, heat and fire, a cool calm, and the cushion of the earth beneath them molding to their bodies. He trembled with the force of it and leaned a fraction closer, his lips brushing hers, deeper.
Snow fell, circling them in a ribbon of white.
The softness of his lips was like warm wine, a taste, and her body sang with energy, stole her breath. Her fingertips dug into his arm, into the thick muscle of the man she'd once loved. She swallowed, worrying his mouth, and was powerless, suspended between the new feelings in her heart and the doom a loveless joining would bring her. Bring the land.
Pressure increased, and his heat poured into her with a welcoming power. The quickening of it awakened her, her innocence grasping and greedy for him. A powerful shudder wracked her to her bones, a warning of the dangers and rewards to come, and Sinead struggled not to fall as she had before. So willing, so blindly.
A tortured moan escaped her as his tongue slid across her lips, and Sinead inhaled, sinking.
"Could you take my body now and not speak of love?"
His gaze locked with hers. "There is no love left in me," he confessed. "Do not look for it. This is all I have." Instantly, he cursed his honesty when she closed her eyes, her fresh tears hidden from him.
"Then you must not touch me so again."
Her tone quivered, the hopelessness in her words shattering the moment and sending him rolling to his back. He stared up at the night sky, shoving his fingers through his hair. His body throbbed with the agony of unanswered want, his blood humming, and he struggled to breathe evenly. He could have lied, given her pretty stories, but when he looked into her eyes the words would not come. And the truth wounded her, left him wanting to give her what she desired. Not so they would come together, which surprised him, but to banish the hurt her words carried.
Connal did not understand a wit of it and glanced at her back. Unwillingly his fingers slipped over the braid of hair, lightly, for a breath of a moment, before he jerked back and rubbed his face. She's enchanted me, he thought. To want with every fiber and be denied. Resigned to a painful night, he shifted to his side. She was curled away from him, nearer to the fire. He rose on his elbow to look down upon her, and she twisted and met his gaze.
He reached behind himself and drew his fur mantle over him. "Come," he encouraged softly, holding up the fur. "Move close and at least this night,
take my warmth."
Her brows knitted with doubt.
"My word, Sinead. To … behave." Though it was killing him not to kiss her sorrow away right this minute. After a breath, she scooted into the curve of his body. Though the mere touch ignited the desire he'd crushed, he held her snugly, her head pillowed on his arm. He continued to watch her as she drifted into the arms of sleep and brushed a strand of red silk from her cheek.
A single tear gathered at the corner of her closed eyes, then fell. Her breath shuddered softly, and Connal felt a wild stab of regret pierce his heart. He felt it bleed and, lying down, wrapped her snugly in his arms.
Serenity washed through him, and like a sudden wave, muscle and bone relaxed. A tingling skipped over his skin, pulling him into the dream world. He could not remember a time when he felt this content with simply holding a woman.
Pinar had not given me this was his last thought before sleep took him. And she'd been murdered for the want of a single moment of pleasure.
* * *
Connal had realized two things last night and this morn when they met again with their entourage.
His mood was foul.
And the cause of it was riding behind him.
Well, three things, he amended. The skin of wine he and Branor were passing atween them offered little in the way of improving his disposition. He glanced back over his shoulder at Sinead. She stopped her conversation with Galeron to look at him, arching that infernal red brow. He faced front.
Once again he could not have the woman he wanted. Once because of deadly custom, and Sinead because he could not love her as she desired. It left him feeling hollow, as if he'd had a great gift and lost it. Twice.
The woman's going to be the bane of my existence, he thought, and the fact that Sinead had not agreed to wed him added to his troubles. 'Twas a formal decree issued by the king and the delay would surely anger their sovereign.
Branor nudged him, offering a skin of wine, and Connal loosed the reins to drink deeply, wishing he could drink away his thought. Scowling over that, he sensed rather than saw her ride up alongside him.
"Will you excuse us a moment, Sir Branor?" she said, leaning forward to look at the knight.
Branor took the wine skin, glanced once at Connal, then nodded, slowing his mount.
"A problem, my lady?"
"None till you tell me why we are headed westerly rather than farther south?"
His shoulders bunched and his gaze flicked to hers, briefly. He'd wondered when she'd realize that.
She eyed him, thoughtful. "The abbey. You go to see your Aunt Rhiannon."
"I thought to pay my respects."
Sinead nodded, agreeing.
But those intentions were a lie. He'd meet with Rhiannon for one reason: to confront her. To know why she'd abandoned him as a babe. Why he let his entire life be a damned lie. Anger seeped into his blood and he fought to mask it in his expression. From infancy to the moment his stepfather, Gaelan PenDragon, spoke the hated words, Connal had thought Siobhàn was his mother, and King Tigheran his natural sire. Tigheran had died afore he was born, slain by Gaelan in a single combat for Tigheran's crimes against King Henry. That knowledge had nearly destroyed his mother's budding love for Gaelan. A year after his knighting, Connal learned the truth—that he was the product of a coupling between an Irish warrior and the woman he'd known as Aunt Rhiannon. And that when Connal was a child, Rhiannon let people be slaughtered rather than reveal her lover's identity to Gaelan and Siobhàn.
'Twas the reason Connal had left Ireland and become a mercenary.
The reason he'd no right to a title as lofty as Prince of Erin.
He was the son of a murderous traitor. A man weak enough to kill his own kin by the order of Lachlan O'Neil. The son of a woman who gladly passed her child off to the clan as heir to the O'Rourkes rather than care for him herself. The deception was for the good of the clan, Siobhàn had claimed. They'd needed a male leader, and though she had ruled, 'twas in his stead.
Connal had spent years keeping the secret, for if anyone knew he was the son of such a spineless man, all he had earned would be lost. Along with the king's trust he valued so well. 'Twas not the taint of his birth that bothered him; there were no bastards in Ireland. But in England, a different story could be told.
"PenDragon?"
His gaze shot to hers. He should grow accustomed to her calling him that, but since last night he'd grown more impatient to cross the line separating them.
"I see great pain on your face."
It was her tone, filled with naught but tender curiosity, that sank into his soul and stirred it.
"Many thoughts to think," he said evasively, and her expression grew more lined with concern.
"Rhiannon will be pleased to see you. She's not admitted visitors for some time now."
"I know." She'd banished herself there and spoken to no one since. She'd refused him when he'd first learned who she was.
"Why do you not go see her and let the rest of us go south? You could catch up easily alone."
Connal admitted he'd considered that and wondered if she suspected the reason why. "I will not leave you or my command for personal … gain."
She sighed hard. "It must be awfully tedious to think of naught but what another expects of you, PenDragon, and not what you expect from yourself."
He looked affronted. "You know naught of me."
"Then tell me, so I may."
His brows drew down. He considered that, and a thousand memories of the past years rolled forward to crush his need to release them. The way he'd scorned his father when Gaelan handed a burden to a newly knighted lad of no more than ten and seven; the moment when he charged across Irish soil to slay his countrymen. And how he'd retched in his boots for weeks over it. Then there was Syria, Cypress, the Holy Land. And the slaughter of war and the taking of innocents in a custom so horrific, he could barely think on it without feeling vile and laden with guilt. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head.
Her hand folded over his where he gripped a dry stick stolen from a passing tree, and his head jerked up, his gaze clashing with hers. The twig snapped. Rage filled his green eyes, and she lurched back in the saddle, frightened by it and the memories it brought.
Then his expression softened, again calm, and the strength it took to master the rage made her relax a fraction.
"When did Ireland lose you?"
Connal rubbed his face. "I do not know."
Together they rode ahead of the group a few yards for privacy.
"What is it that you desire," she whispered, "not what the king wishes, but … you?"
He met her gaze, then searched her features, passing like a butterfly over her beauty. "You."
She did not scoff or make a face, yet only the corners of her mouth curved gently. "That is for the king and your lust. So it does not count."
"I—I know your feelings on this marriage—ah, do not speak yet, let me finish, woman."
She clamped her lips shut and nodded.
"I was not pleased either, but I will do my duty." When her expression grew mutinous, he eyed her. "Will you hear me out or sear my ears with your insults?"
"I said naught!"
"But you were thinking of smacking me for referring to our marriage as duty."
She smiled. He was right. "Forgive me; go on."
"I want no harm to anyone, Sinead, especially you. I have much to do here, for the king, for Ireland—nay," he warned, putting up a finger, "you promised to be quiet. The oaths will protect Ireland, and our people. Without the alliances, Prince John can order any and all to raise arms for more wars. With the oaths, they will shield our people from those who would rather see us ousted from our homeland to extinction. By Richard's command, uniting our families will be another mark of his promise of peace. And the oaths take back his control from John."
Sinead was silent, thoughtful, her gaze moving over his features. "I understand, PenDragon, and can see the benefit of oaths
and marriages. When you ask, I will help you if I can, but you still have not told me what you desire."
He fell into her gaze, like diving into a crystal pool of blue to slake his thirst; he drank her in, his heart shifting in his chest. "Peace. And to be welcome in my homeland." And by you, slid slyly through his mind.
"I wish that, too, but Ireland will be hard pressed to do that, for you think English and serve Richard so well. Nay, I do not ask for treason and nor will I commit it, for I know the English rule, but must we come like an army threatening war?" She gestured to the vassals behind them, the armored knights and carts of weapons.
"A threat lives with us, and I believe I can defend us well."
She gave him a light shove. "I do not doubt that either, you ox."
He grinned, then said quietly, "'Twas Richard's request that I come armed, Sinead. He believes the show of force will warn back John's lackeys."
"Or anger them more."
The moment the words left her lips, the whisper of an arrow sang over their heads and found its target in the thigh of Connal's squire riding behind them.
The lad howled.
"The trees!" someone shouted, and knights formed a circle as Connal withdrew his sword.
"Sinead, stay behind me!" he ordered, reaching for his shield.
Sinead obeyed, the knights smothering her with their protection. The first dash came quickly, Connal's soldiers rushing forward. But the attackers were no match for PenDragon's troops. Larger in size, and with years of experience in the Crusades behind them, they'd hardly gained a few yards before leaving a wake of bodies behind them. Arrows arched through the cold air, piercing tender flesh; blades cut deep and fatal, the resounding screams permeating her skin.
She felt each cry, each blow, and nearest her a PenDragon soldier went down, blood splattering the already drenched snow. Connal lurched forward, wanting to go to him, yet remained with her. "Defend yourselves," she said. "I will leave."
THE IRISH KNIGHT Page 13
